After five rounds of intense, often contentious, negotiations, India and the US have finally agreed on the contours of the 123 pact, which has been described as “a touchstone of a transformed bilateral relationship between India and the US”. Ever since the Bush administration declared in 2005 its ambition to achieve full civil nuclear energy cooperation with India, there has been such euphoria surrounding the deal that it was not often realised that whole process would be a long and tortuous one. Today, when both Right and Left are hard pressed to find faults with the deal and when even Anil Kakodkar has expressed his satisfaction with it, it is clear the Indian government has, for a change, conducted its diplomacy far more effectively than many had assumed would be the case.

The US has committed itself to uninterrupted fuel supplies and will help India in developing strategic fuel reserve. India is allowed to reprocess spent fuel from its civilian reactors in a new facility, which will be subject to the IAEA safeguards. While there does not seem to be any explicit reference to India’s tests in the future, the US president remains bound by the Atomic Energy Act to ask for the return of nuclear fuel and technology if India does test.

After the Hyde Act was passed last year, there was a lot of concern in India about some of its “extraneous and prescriptive” provisions. When confronted by the Opposition, the government had to specifically assert that the 123 Agreement would not mention India’s voluntary moratorium on testing; a moratorium on fissile material production would not be a condition for the deal; the issue of reprocessing will be dealt with seriously; and that the US government has assured that fuel supply will not be affected under the present laws.

... contd.